


shorten the longing

by marble_pistol



Category: Cyberpunk 2077 (Video Game)
Genre: M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Pre-Slash, coping with loss, does chip allows them to touch?, game says yes i say no, gays in cyberspace, occasional use of russian, weird touching issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-03
Updated: 2021-02-03
Packaged: 2021-03-12 18:19:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29139906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marble_pistol/pseuds/marble_pistol
Summary: short pieces about their relationships. life with a brainworm in your head - and without him. non-chronological order.
Relationships: Johnny Silverhand/Male V, Johnny Silverhand/V
Kudos: 7





	shorten the longing

**Author's Note:**

> Title stolen from album name by Biting Elbows, listen to em they are cool

Dim afternoon light slips through V’s eyelids, and he grudges in his sleep. His mind still bears pieces of that dream, that he can’t seem to grasp; it keeps running away to further corners of his brain.   
Warm darkness from that dream still lingers on his irises and V lets himself bathe in that feeling a little bit more - until he is ready to open his eyes.   
Nothing has changed in the apartment since he went to sleep - cold flooring, broad hallways, scattered cat food on the kitchen floor - and the culprit.   
The cat has found his refuge on some dirty shirt - now yawning and meowing at V.  
“Hey, sweetie” - V scratches between Nibbles’ ears, who basks in the attention. This goofball is the only thing that is left from his old life, a lurking copy of a man always at his back, his hands stretched up, trying to touch the sky and become a legend. 

His computer is malfunctioning again. His mailbox is at capacity, the entire thing full of spam messages and files addled with viruses. He wonders if it’d be easier just to throw the bucket of wires out the window. V’s eye implants flicker, and for a split second he sees the familiar silhouette of Johnny, chrome arm refracting light like cut diamond. A throbbing headache shoots through V’s head. Cautions and error messages flood his vision and V groans, head in his hands. 

Every time he gets these migraines, he wants to curse his former shadow for even existing, and Alt - for fixing his brain but not good enough so V can keep up with his former way of life.   
But in the end, he curses himself. For getting this body back.  
V stays that way for a while, until the waves of pain become more bearable, and his operation system stops acting like he’s on fire. He’ll burn, just not today it seems.  
V’s back is too tense for him to feel the metallic touch of a familiar hand.

***

“I cannot do that.” Alt says, and in her synthesised voice, V can hear the drop of heartsore. “Your body is too weak to sustain both engrams, and it rejects your consciousness.”  
Johnny jumps to his feet, kicking his own translucent chair in fury. “That’s bullshit! What does it mean - his own body wants to vomit him out? Why the fuck…”  
He looks at Alt, red colossus, all ones and zeros, and asks a silent question - why? - but deep down he already has his answer.   
Because sometimes things are just the way they are. No one cares how hard you try or how much you deserve a good ending, there is no such thing as justice.   
“But it can’t be real. Check again, Alt, please,” V’s last request sounds like a plea, but he just can’t be bothered to care about something like self-respect. He knows that he’s out of his body now, yet he can hear the blood pumping in his ears. It suffocates his hearing, his vision slowly tunneling.  
“My calculations are correct. I am sorry, V.”  
She’s sorry. Some things are beyond the possibilities of creatures mighty enough to pluck a satellite from the sky and crumble it to pieces.  
Johnny storms towards him, falling to his knees, holding V’s face in his hands, willing him to see something besides artificial floor and his own grim thoughts.  
“V, listen to me. We’ll stick to the plan, you’ll get your body and I’ll stay here, understand?”  
His hands are warm, V thinks. For the first time he is able to feel Johnny’s touch, instead of pins and needles or a strange chill when steps through his holographic body. When he looks up at Johnny’s face, he can see in his eyes - he feels it too.  
“I can feel you.” V puts his hands on Johnny’s, slides his palm on cool metal, warm skin, touches the crevices in his chrome implant. He couldn’t see much a hair on him, but now it’s there, and these clues scream alive, real, here in his brain.   
Johnny thumbs circles on V’s cheeks,, he looks as shocked as V feels. His touches are tender, careful, like he’s made out of porcelain.   
“Please” is the only thought in his mind,, the only thought for both of them. one for botJohnny obeys, bringing his face closer to V’s,, kissing the other man softly.  
A supernova feels like it explodes in the back of V’s brain, reality drifts away. Every binary particle in this nonexistent space passes through his fragile body, and V desperately wants this moment to last longer.   
When it comes to an end, there are tears on both of their cheeks, and they can’t tell who was crying.   
Johnny breaks the silence first.  
“Have your life there, like the king of the hill, live for both of us. For me.”  
V chuckles.  
“Who would’ve thought that it would end like this. You wanted to kill me that first time”  
“A lot’s changed, y’know.” Johnny tries to smile, but it feels bittersweet, and his tears flicker in the odd lighting of cyberspace.   
Johnny offers his hand and V takes it, getting up, driven by sheer will. Silverhand’s silhouette is radiating determination, and V can feel that he won’t take “no” for an answer.   
Everything was predetermined even before he entered Mikoshi. Maybe, even before he slid that chip into his brain.  
V is sitting on the edge of the well, hesitant. He turns around to Johnny’s familiar face, his expression mournful.   
“I don’t want to leave you.”  
It’s hard to decipher the look on his face. He looks away, into the nothingness, thoughts curling in his head, until he turns the gaze back towards V. He looks so lost and distant, despite being less than an arm’s length away.  
“Wrong city, wrong people, huh? I’ll be there somewhere. Don’t you dare think I’ll just disappear outta your life.”  
Johnny cups V’s face, ignoring the sea of sadness in V’s eyes, and kisses him - desperately. V whimpers under his touch, grabbing his hair, shirt, whatever his hands can have, overwhelmed by how very real every surface of him feels.  
“I'll see you around. Don’t forget that.”  
V succumbs to the well, body and mind drifting away, eyes locked on the shadow that is Johnny Silverhand, the legend who means just a little bit too much to him, and closes his eyes.

***

Holding Johnny's hand feels more like a weird tingle on the tips of his fingers than a real touch. V doesn't try to touch him, more like playing with the idea of his holding hand. Running his knuckles over metal parts, brushing idly.  
Johnny looks down - blows out nonexistent smoke - then looks back up to V's eyes.  
He moves his hand forward.  
His metal hand goes through his body and V can swear - he feels something in his chest, right where the ghost hand is hovering, electrifying his shirt.  
Johnny's eyes are unreadable, and this uncertainty fills the room with a strange agitation.  
V is grateful that Johnny is silent the whole time, because nothing good ever leaves his mouth, and if he kills this mood, V will do everything in his power to throw this leech of a man out the window.  
The man in question makes a move with his fingers - like he means to pull the hem of V’s shirt, if he could. V obeys, removing it, revealing pale skin covered in a cacophony of black ink.. A ghost hand almost pushes on his chest, and V falls on his bed before Johnny comes closer. Johnny is hovering over him, aviators gone and looking surprisingly smug. His eyes and hands study what he already knows, a nonexistent weight on his hips.  
Light touches tingle across V’s skin, sending tiny volts across, and to Johnny’s hologram. V is shivering under his delicate touch, his breathing uneven.  
'So obedient for me' Johnny hums, fingers hovering under V's jaw. 'I wanna feel something too. Pop that pill and I’ll make us both feel good.’  
The thought warms his gut, it brings back bits of those feelings when Johnny was possessing his body full time, going completely postal and feeling whatever thing he could get his hands on. Maybe if he takes only half a pill, V could be aware too.  
V slides his hand to the floor, digging for the right bottle, cracking the pill in two and swallowing a half while maintaining eye contact with his ghost, Johnny’s eyes drip pure lust.  
'Good boy.' - those simple words make V’s dick throb, before Johnny disappears in blue static, and his body stops responding.

***

"So what's the news? How's shit in Night City today?" - V reclines on a comfy chair, staring out the window lazily. Silver skyscrapers and toxic fumes, how can you get tired of that.  
"Authoritative sources say Militech is going to start negotiations with Arasaka about their buyout and merger with the corporation, Maelstrom reinforced their activity in the southern part of the city. Also, Johnny said hi."  
"WHAT?! " V shouted, and his own ears hurt from the volume. He jumped from the seat, legs shaking.  
"There is no need to be worried, Mr. V, I believe you won't be affected directly by those actions."  
"DON'T FUCK WITH ME YOU PIECE OF JUNK, YOU KNOW EXACTLY WHAT I MEAN! " Thoughts in V's head felt like needles poking through his scalp, every muscle in body tense, ready to jump. "HOW COULD HE EVER SAY FUCKING HI?"  
"I am sorry, but i do not understand the reason behind your worries. Who said hi?"  
V slumped into his seat, suddenly exhausted from all the emotions that ran through him. He needed something to drink, hard - champagne on his right was not a perfect solution, but better than nothing. He finished his entire glass in two painful gulps, his voice raspy when he responds, "You said Johnny. That Johnny said hi. After that Maelstrom shit. The fuck is that?”  
"I do not remember ever saying that and my logs are proving the same. I will display them on the monitor. Also, I would kindly ask you to refrain from using profanities. "  
"Yeah, how about no, железная сука. You are right though... Weird. " Logs were clean from any mention of Johnny, and V knew that the Delamain company is not the kind to cover up something. Especially after everything they’d already been through.  
V took another drink.  
"Do you think I'm going nuts, Del?"  
"I am not authorized to give you that kind of examination. I would advise you to visit a specialist in mental health instead. Also, all our cars and AVs are equipped with automatic translating services."  
"Дебил блять"  
The rest of the flight was spent in silence, except for V's thoughts, swirling in his mind.

***

The desert was welcoming, warm sand and the hard heat of the sun playing on V’s skin. The wind is soft, every breeze feels like a caress. He parks his bike and leans it against a singed Joshua tree, covered in dust. There was silence for miles around, it made his mind feel loud. V’s thoughts didn’t come in a single gargantuan wave, they were always trickling in his consciousness bit by bit, the longer he spent in his tiny little apartment in Megabuilding 10.  
About inevitability. About death. About Johnny.   
A notification warned him in the corner of his vision but swiftly became washed away by tears. Memories of his first week without Johnny swirl like a storm in his head, how he was just a mere shadow: grabbing his phone in one hand to answer a fixer, and a gun in his other. Run, kill, steal, deliver, drop, rinse and repeat. It tasted like a bittersweet rum on his tongue, burning away any creeping thought about "what now?" only to leave him in the dead of the morning, his face stiff from so many hours of drying tears, with Nibbles, licking his hand. That cat may be the only one who saved him, after all.  
It's good to be in a desert, with no one to hear him weeping.  
Far away, a beaten up billboard began to flicker on, buzzing with renewed energy, a transformer box, half-buried in sand, exploded with a loud pop.  
V stopped crying, lifted his head and looked along the horizon.   
In the darkness, between jagged rocks and dried flora, stands a billboard, glowing white under the dark blue sky.  
V smiled, corners of his mouth shaking.  
"I STILL REMEMBER YOU  
I LOVE YOU"

**Author's Note:**

> I want to say thank you to people of Rainbow Cadenza discord server - i love yall and send kis.   
> Also big kudos to server mod Em for helping me shape this work into its beauty - your comments really make me happy and give me confidence in my skills.


End file.
